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EU, US, China plan high-level product safety meeting

03 April 2008, 19:46 CET

(BRUSSELS) - The EU, US and China will hold a high-level consumer product safety meeting in Brussels in November after a string of scares and product recalls last year, the European Commission announced Thursday.

EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner Meglena Kuneva held talks with Nancy Nord, chair of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the pair agreed to work closely to push Chinese manufacturers to meet Western safety standards on exported goods.

"We are pro-open markets , (but) not compromising on safety," Kuneva told reporters after the meeting.

Nord for her part said "it will be very important that the two major economies in the world will be speaking with one voice on this very important issue."

Ahead of the three-way meeting in Brussels on November 15, Kuneva is scheduled to visit China in June while Nord pans to do so, along with a European Commission delegation, in September.

Last year the focus for concern over unsafe Chinese goods focused on the toy sector.

Tens of millions of Chinese-made toys were recalled amid concern they could be dangerous, in what became a new flash point in trade relations between the Asian economic giant and Europe and the United States.

Many of the recalls were by US toy giant Mattel.

The European Commission, the European Union's executive arm, said in November that China had made "considerable progress" in cracking down on exports of dangerous toys.

China is the world's top toy exporter.

Text and Picture Copyright 2008 AFP. All other Copyright 2008 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.




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